The Washington Post has published an excellent article over what the RIAA has been up to recently regarding KaZaA and provides some interesting information about how KaZaA started. The most interesting part of the article refers to the fact that the RIAA recently lost a case in Estonia over KaZaA.

About 25 organisations including the RIAA are suing a dozen or so organisations and individuals connected with the FastTrack network (which KaZaA uses). Although Kazaa was created by 2 Dutch individuals, it was the work of 2 software companies in Estonia that created much of the KaZaA and FastTrack code. These 2 companies are named in the long list of defendants in the case as are the 2 Dutch individuals. Consequently, the RIAA asked the Estonian companies to hand over documents related to how Kazaa works. The case ended in court with the several Estonian individuals saying that they had given someone else the code and claimed they no longer had it. Now the US court has asked an Estonian court to force the Estonian companies to hand over documents related to the code. They have lost their case.

Tallinn City Judge Aase Sammelselg rejected the U.S. request on grounds that it was drafted so vaguely that it might cause the programmers to reveal business secrets and was “not in conformity with the Estonian laws.” Part of the reason they lost their case was the Estonian translation was vague. A new request is being prepared for the Estonian court.

Key to this is the forthcoming decision by a US court which will likely be based on how controllable FastTrack is.